Coming together to form a once-in-a-lifetime line-up, Bob Dylan, Wilco, My Morning Jacket and Richard Thompson combined for an afternoon and evening full of music dubbed the "AmericanaRama tour." Each of these performers was known for taking the genre of roots/folk rock and pushing its sonic boundaries to new places throughout their careers.
Richard Thompson Electric Trio:
With only a half-hour set to play with, Richard Thompson and his Electric Trio made the most of their time slot, showcasing Thompson's superb axemanship. Opening with two tracks from his most recent "Electric" album, ("Stuck on a Treadmill" and "Sally B") Thompson hooked at least one new fan (me) through his powerful British blues-rock and great jams. Thompson joked about the irony of him being on a tour called "Americanarama," seeing that he is a British performer. While his set was solid, his later collaborations with Wilco would steal the show.
Grade: B+
My Morning Jacket:
About three songs into a blistering hour-long set, my friend, Steve Bloom, turned to me and asked, "how is anyone going to top this?" He was right on. My Morning Jacket came to the stage to prove that they deserve to be among the best-of-the-best. If this was their mission, they accomplished it by a mile. Like the other artists on this tour, MMJ are used to being headline performers who sell out mid-sized venues across the country. Confined to an hour, the Jacket made the most of their time delivering a driving rock set which fired-up the crowd and was perhaps the best I've seen them play as a unit. And, this was in the late afternoon, without the use of their elaborate light show.
Jim James frequently told the crowd what a beautiful day it was, and with temperatures in the mid seventies and few if any clouds in the sky, he was correct. My Morning Jacket's set provided a perfect soundtrack to this lovely late afternoon.
The band opened with a deep cut, "The Dark" off of 1999's
The Tennessee Fire, and then went into the fan-favorite "Circuital" from the band's latest 2011 release by the same name. The fun continued with rousing renditions of "Magheeta" from 2003's break out disc,
It Still Moves. The Jacket mellowed things out a bit with a mid set combination of "Golden" and "Slow Slow Tune." The band then went to their back catalog for a beautiful rendition of "Masterplan," which kicked off a very high energy portion of the show that would find Jim James moving throughout the stage, leading the crowd in sing a longs to "I'm Amazed," "Victory Dance," and "Wordless Chorus" (which featured James in his trademark cape). The jammy "Phone Went West" followed, and was certain to be the set closer, when James boldly grabbed his flying v guitar and launched the band into a riveting rendition of their trademark cut, "One Big Holiday." For a beautiful day, you couldn't ask for a better way to close the set or engage the crowd.
My Morning Jacket delivered an over-the-top performance that stole the show, solidifying their place as a great band who continues to challenge the boundaries of Americana music.
Grade: A+
Wilco:
For a band that is used to playing headlining gigs and over two-hour performances, it was a little bit strange to see them confined to an hour and fifteen minute time slot. (The last time I saw Wilco when they were not the headlining act was at 1995's H.O.R.D.E. festival). In the time Wilco was allotted, the ChiTown sextet managed to keep true to the theme of Americana, with a show punctuated by collaborations and deep cuts.
Opening the show with a cut from the
Mermaid Avenue album, "At the Window, Sad and Lonely" and followed it up with the Laura Cantrell cover, "When the Roses Bloom Again." These tracks started off the show off on a very mellow note. From there Tweedy launched into "What Light," a rarely played cut off of 2008's
Sky Blue Sky, which I had never seen performed before. A passionate version of "Misunderstood" followed, with Tweedy and company paying homage to their home crowd fans. Renditions of
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot's "Poor Places," and
The Whole Love's "Art of Almost" showcased Wilco's ability to push the boundaries of Americana music through experimentation.
The collaborative portion of the show followed. Richard Thompson rejoined Wilco, as has been customary on this tour to perform a few tunes. The first of which, a cover of the Australian band Fairport Convention's "Sloth," was truly exceptional, and my musical highlight of the evening, even though I had never heard the tune before. The guitar interplay between Thompson and Wilco's virtuoso axeman Nels Cline, transformed the musicians into a jam band for the 10 minute epic tune. It was seriously some of the best guitar work I've seen on stage in quite some time. Thompson stayed on with the hometown band to cover "California Stars," and then launched into "That's Not The Issue," an alt-country ho-down track off of their debut record,
AM.
Thompson then left the stage, and Tweedy grabbed the mic for the poppy, "Hummingbird" off of 2001's
A Ghost Is Born, which flowed into the fan-favorite, "Impossible Germany," complete with another lengthy Nels Cline solo.
In somewhat of a dream-come-true collaboration, Wilco invited My Morning Jacket on stage to do a cover of Neil Young's "Cinnamon Girl," which they've played a few times on the tour thus far. While the song was short and not really as jammed out as I was hoping for, seeing my two favorite bands play together on the same stage was a real treat.
If there was a let down in Wilco's set, I would argue that the finish was rather lackluster, with two relatively poppy "dad rock" tunes off of
The Whole Love, "Born Alone," and "Dawned on Me." These aren't bad tracks, by any means, but are normally early or mid set numbers, and left the audience with more of a "huh?" expression rather than the large perma-grins which followed MMJ's earlier set.
That said, Wilco delivered set list that was aimed to please both new and old fans and took a lot of risks and challenges in their performances and selections, making this a rather adventurous take on their Americana influenced catalog.
Grade: A-
Bob Dylan:
Oddly enough, the headliner of AmericanaRama, Bob Dylan, proved to be the most polarizing figure of the night. For many fans who wish to hear Dylan's hits, he is a source of great irritation live. Not only does Dylan not play "the hits," but a lot of times he alters older songs into drastically different arrangements, to a point where the only recognizable quality of the song is the lyrics. If you know anything about Dylan, you know that lyrics have always been hard to decipher from the man, but these days are even more gravelly seeing that Dylan is 71 years old.
Since 2001's fantastic album,
Love and Theft, Dylan has taken on a role of more of a dark character out of a western movie on stage. His band, as always, was extremely tight and played a well-rehearsed set, which has been Dylan's nightly fodder. We stayed through about a half hour of his performance, and as he played, saw a decent amount of people trickle out of Toyota Park. To quote our concert neighbor's Facebook status, "Bob Dylan sounds like what Saturday Night Live would sound like if they portrayed Bob Dylan." As a music fan, Bob Dylan, at this stage in his career is not going to knock your socks off like My Morning Jacket does, but, I do have a lot of respect for what he does.
Perhaps my respect for the performer clouds my review, but overall, if you know what you're getting, Dylan can be a fun, and even musically innovative act. Many veteran acts, for instance Tom Petty and Paul McCartney, have chosen, essentially to do greatest hits shows when they perform. They pack much larger venues than Dylan and probably leave the average fan much more satisfied upon leaving the arena. That said, Dylan keeps putting out challenging, relevant music to critical praise. For what it's worth, I loved hearing "Early Roman Kings" from last year's
The Tempest, and found that much better than his "take" on "Tangled Up in Blue."
If Dylan was slated as an earlier afternoon act, I think his performance would have come across better. Simply put, he was upstaged by a terrific MMJ set and a collaboration-filled Wilco performance. While we all hoped for some sort of collaboration between Dylan, Wilco, and My Morning Jacket, no such interplay occurred. After a half-hour, we chose to forgo the rest of Dylan's set to begin the traffic-jam laden trek back to Mequon. If Dylan comes back and plays an intimate venue, I would consider seeing him again, but overall, think my Dylan days are done.
Grade: B-
The term "buzz band" seems to be most often associated these days with the California psychedelic-alternative rock duo of Jonathan Rado and Sam France, better known as Foxygen. After all, they were named a "Best New Music" artist on Pitchfork, and had a great write up in Rolling Stone. Their latest release, We Are The 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace and Magic is a very good album, and will most likely end up on several critics' best of the year lists, including my own. 
From my point of view, Foxygen is a very young and talented band that needs to figure out a stage niche of their own without falling into rock 'n roll stereotypes and cliches. At the heart of this band are two musicians who are solid songwriters. Their modern take on the laid back, jammy nature of late '60's-early '70's psychedelic rock peaked my interest as a listener. Lead vocalist, Sam France channels the spirit of Jim Morrison, Mick Jagger and Iggy Pop when he performs. His stage antics go from hitting himself with the microphone, wrapping his microphone stand around his neck, holding the mic stand backwards, standing on the monitors, climbing on the speaker stack and jumping down, and tripping several times on stage. The out-of-control rocker image has been done in the past, and more convincingly, than Page's presence. With that said, he did entertain visually. The arrangements of the tunes were a bit on the sloppy side, but fit the band well. In fact, one of the touring musicians often put his guitar down in lieu of a tambourine, channeling Joel Gion of the Brian Jonestown Massacre. He was quite entertaining and held my attention well.
